Why Are Cyberpunk 2077s Next-Gen Versions Taking Over A Year To Release? – Forbes

Cyberpunk 2077

Yesterday, Cyberpunk 2077 announced that the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of the game would be out in Q1 2022, a delay from what CDPR had said the entire past year, where multiple roadmaps always indicated they would be coming in the second half of 2021.

CDPR has been talking about these next-gen versions for ages, all the way back in June 2020, well before release, they talked about how PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions were coming, and that they would be free upgrades to those who owned last-gen copies on PS4 and Xbox One.

One of the major issues Cyberpunk endured was the games performance on consoles. The worst offenders were PS4 and Xbox One base versions of the game, but the game did not exactly run great even on next-gens PS5 and Xbox Series X, which were running upconverted PS4 Pro and Xbox One X versions respectively.

Sowhy? Why is it taking CPDR over a full year to release these versions of the game, when clearly the original plan was to get them out shortly after launch?

A few reasons are obvious. First, the game was so broken at launch that whatever resources were going to be devoted to things like DLC or next-gen versions of the game were redirected toward simplyfixing the game. That took the better part of the first year, delaying all those plans.

Cyberpunk 2077

But what I think is really happening here, is that CDPR is gearing up for some major, major overhauls to Cyberpunk 2077, and they are going to release the next-gen version with many of those in place, rather than a version now that will then need stuff carved out of it and re-patched later.

The more patches we get in Cyberpunk 2077 lately, the larger they have been, and the more they are changing many of the core fundamentals of the game to pave the way for larger changes. We just got an entire overhaul to the way reflective surfaces work in the game, dramatically increasing visual fidelity in some circumstances. Other changes involve massive updates to the game itself, much of which cant even be seen, but its laying groundwork under the surface for larger changes to come.

We can take proposed lists of whats coming with grains of salt, but there are reportedly large overhauls to things like police, enemy and civilian AI in the works. A large amount of new content is planned, both with free DLCs and paid expansions, which will layer new missions on top of what we already have in Night City, just fleshing out areas more (like Pacifica).

I dont think that the next-gen versions will launch for the first expansion, but I do expect there to be a lot of core changes to the game made by the time thats released, and these big, larger-scale overhauls are the reason the next-gen version has been pushed so it can feel like a true relaunch. I think CDPR knows that many, many next-gen players have been waiting on the game entirely until the next gen version comes out, and if they can do a second launch where everything works 100% better than at launch, looks better, plays better, performs better, thats the closest thing they can get to the start of a redemption arc. And if theyve waiting a year for that, whats a year and three months?

Again, CDPR is still putting in a massive amount of work on Cyberpunk, with most of the company still working on the game, and something like 60 open roles listed as they try to staff up even further. Big, big changes are coming, and I believe this is the main reason for the next-gen delay, in addition to the past year of bug fixes we had to endure.

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Why Are Cyberpunk 2077s Next-Gen Versions Taking Over A Year To Release? - Forbes